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Accessible News Slider Plugin Built for jQuery

Accessible News Slider is a JavaScript plugin built for the jQuery library. The plugin does not use color as a primary indicator of a change in state for the slider. Instead, the “back” and “next” navigation is either visible or hidden. There is also an indicator that communicates the total number of news items.

If the user chooses to resize the text via the browser file menu, the slider will flex vertically to accommodate the larger text, and still function. Although the core functionality of the news slider is partially accessible with a keyboard, the “View All” link was added as a catch-all mechanism. Hitting the “Enter” key while focused on the hidden “Skip to News” anchor will mimic the same behavior, since it is assumed the user is tabbing through content.

The JavaScript is only 2 KB packed. The CSS, XHTML and JavaScript were developed specifically to meet the WCAG 1.0, and this will always be the number one priority of the plugin. The ZIP download contains all of the necessary files, including a packed version of jQuery v.1.2.6.

If you tab through the page this plugin “breaks”. Try tabbing through the news links and you’ll see what happens. Can’t seriously be called “accessible” if it doesn’t perform properly for keyboard users.

http://blog.reindel.com Brian

Hi Will,

I created Accessible News Slider. If you read through the descriptions of the different accessibility groups, I make mention that keyboard users (typically using a mouthstick) are the toughest to handle. This is why the “View All” mechanism was added. There is no way to key/tab through the slider news items accept for when they are all viewing on the page. This very much meets the spirit of the WCAG, since an alternative to viewing the content has been provided for these users.